Clash at Work
by scatcat517
Summary: Kaka-Saku fic. Sakura and Kakashi have some serious issues. What happens when a devious blond Hokage, Konohamaru's chuunin team and a diabolical cat get involved? co-authored by Aidan Notfilc, feedback is welcome :
1. Magenta haired, hyperactive,Kakashi?

Hello! this is scatcat and ninjapenguintime! ummmm... we decided that Kakashi and Sakura are really cute together...so we decided to write this fic... we hope that you all enjoy!

* * *

**_Chapter 1: Magenta haired, Hyperactive...Kakashi?_**

Naruto was tired…. Actually, exhausted was perhaps the more correct term…. He looked down at his desk, and then thought how nice it would be if he could actually see the wood of the desk.

The only things visible were enormous stacks of paper, mission reports, mission requests, various alliances and treaties, and the all important…pen…. And that was buried somewhere under the ever-growing stack of paper.

With a frustrated sigh, Naruto leaned back in his rather comfortable chair and let his head rest against the back. Jiraiya looked up, from his position on Naruto's couch next to the bookshelf of his office, and raised an eyebrow at his former pupil

The blond was tuning out the look his perverted ex-teacher was giving him as he heard a slight rap on the window next to his head. Turning his spiky blond head slightly, he was met by a familiar pink haired kunoichi's face. She was crouching on the sill, holding her balance with her left arm and resting her chin in her right hand, which was propped up on her knee.

The sun was just setting in the village of Konohagakure, and this caused Sakura's already bubblegum pink hair to turn a very, very, bright shade of magenta.

The Kyuubi vessel stifled a laugh, fearing for his health, noticing that his long time friend was wearing a not so nice facial expression

"How did the mission go?" Naruto asked after a long pause.

Sakura looked at him for a moment, searching for words tiredly, "it was successful, Hokage-sama." She replied in a monotone.

Naruto looked taken aback for a second, but recovered quickly.

"Ummm, Sakura-chan… you've known me since we were in the academy… don't call me 'sama', please?"

Sakura blinked and then nodded slowly, "sorry, Naruto… I'm just a little out of it right now… that's all. If there's nothing else you want to talk to me about, I'll just hand in my mission report tomorrow morning, and go home now…." She trailed off, her voice getting quiet.

Her blond friend looked concerned as he studied her for several long moments, "that's fine Sakura…. I'll see you tomorrow morning, then…."

Sakura nodded, thankful that her friend had decided not to push any issue with her when she was this tired.

"I think I'm gonna take the stairs…." Sakura said softly after a second, jumping into the office fully through the open window, and then making her way to the door, next to Jiraiya lounging backside on the couch.

She opened the door with a decisive snap, and then, without looking back at Naruto or even acknowledging Jiraiya's existence, left the office, closing the door sharply behind herself.

Naruto slumped back in his seat once more; resuming the position he had taken earlier, and then looked at Jiraiya.

The Sannin looked at the once-idiot ex-student and shrugged his shoulders; he was at a loss about Sakura's behavior too….

Naruto sat there, musing for Kami knew how long, before there was a lazy knock on the wooden office door.

"Enter." Naruto called, a hint of his exhaustion creeping into his normally alert voice.

A familiar silver haired Jounin opened the door, and was followed in by a loud, angry shriek from who could only be Sakura.

"Yo." Kakashi greeted his one time Genin-student.

"Hey." Naruto replied staring at Kakashi's left arm….

Kakashi followed the blonds' gaze and found himself staring at his cast and sling ridden arm. He rubbed the back of his unruly silver head with his good right arm and gave a half hearted eye crinkle to Naruto.

"It's nothing much, just a busted arm…. Tsunade-hime said it was nothing a few ummm…. Months couldn't fix."

Naruto squinted at Kakashi, "You have been taken off of ANBU's active duty roster. I'm reposting you until this," he said motioning to Kakashi's incapacitated limb, " is fully healed and cleared by Baa-chan, Shizune-san, or Sakura-chan. I don't care what you think of this decision."

Kakashi had been ready to open his mouth in his defense, but then closed it again when the blue eyed blond gave him the 'I am being completely serious right now,' look.

"Right…." Kakashi replied trailing off, "what do I do 'til then?" he asked in his prototypical way.

Naruto leaned forward in his chair and propped his elbows up on the paper in front of him on his desk. Then, he rested his chin in his hands, letting out, not the last, of many long sighs that day.

"Now, Kakashi." Jiraiya started, "we didn't want to put you in charge of a Genin team…because you haven't wanted one since… well, team seven…." Jiraiya looked at Kakashi's masked face and saw the falsely-crinkled eye droop.

"I have decided that since you cannot function as an ANBU at the moment, you will switch with Ebisu, who has volunteered to be your team's replacement for the time being." Naruto finished, allowing the significance of his statement weigh on Kakashi.

Kakashi's only visible eye widened after a moment and he raised his good arm in the beginnings of protest, " ne, Naruto-" he was cut off.

The door to the Rokudaime-Hokage's office was thrown open with such pressure, that it hit the wall hard enough to make some of the paint flake off, and the ceiling to shake hard enough to make a few random debris fall on Jiraiya's head.

Sarutobi Konohamaru, and his team mates stood in the door way and then charged straight up to Naruto's desk.

"Hey Boss! You said we would have a new sensei by now! Who is the guy anyway?!" Konohamaru demanded, hand motioning wildly; causing Naruto to wonder if he could ever have been anything like the hyperactive teen in front of him….

"Kakashi, meet your new Chuunin team." Naruto said.

If Kakashi had not been wearing his mask (as though he would go out without it…) the whole room would have seen his jaw drop.

* * *

The ground is very solid, Sakura thought, annoyed. Why did the ground have to seem like it was shifting in different directions when she was tired. Why did everything just scream 'chakra exhaustion!' to her right now?... Oh, wait… could it possibly be because she was suffering from, chakra exhaustion?

Inner Sakura made an appearance for the first time in a long time, 'being sarcastic to yourself isn't helping, Sakura.'

'Shut up, inner.' Sakura groaned mentally holding her balance as best she could.

It would simply not do for her to fall over in the middle of the street this close to home. After all, she had been trained by the former Hokage, the Godaime-Hokage, Tsunade. The slug Sannin… also the worst gambler in the world, but hey, Tsunade couldn't be amazing at everything….

Sakura rolled her eyes half heartedly and continued her trudge toward her apartment. When she finally reached her building she waved unenthusiastically to her very cranky landlady, who always on a face that said, ' I just sucked on a lemon'.

Sakura then half-staggered over to the flight of stairs that would take her up to the second story apartments.

She grimaced when she laid her eyes on them… there were sixteen steps…. Sixteen agonizing steps for her to climb….

'Think about something else, then.' Inner Sakura countered.

'Like what?' Sakura fussed back.

'Like that ex-sensei of yours!' inner Sakura shot back, irritated. ' Have you even had a proper conversation with him lately?'

" No. and I don't intend to!" Sakura barked, out loud. Causing her lemon sucking landlady to give a weird look….

"Gomen nesai." Sakura said, just loud enough for the strange woman to turn away with a slight nod of the head…. Back to her gardening of…lemons….

'See what you made me do!' Sakura yelled to her inner, in her head.

' Yeah, you acted like even more of an idiot….' Inner Sakura grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.

' Shut up.' Sakura replied forcefully, tuning out inner Sakura as she climbed the stairs, and thought of a certain silver haired ex-sensei….

* * *

Thinking back to three years ago….

_Sakura sat on the bloodied ground next to Uchiha sasuke's cooling corpse; too shocked to move or think._

_Kakashi stood on the other side of sasuke's body, next to Naruto's unconscious one…._

_He said nothing, both of his eyes were visible, and they were glazed over with pain._

_She could not comprehend what was happening around her, all she saw were the sightless sharingan eyes staring up at her…._

Sakura blinked and shook her head, ridding herself of the memory. It had been three years since that day. She had held only two and a half conversations with the Hatake since then…. That half was today.

'If he paid more attention, and actually came around once in a while, I wouldn't be so mad at him.' Sakura thought, reaching the top of the stairwell.

She turned to her left and walked down to apartment B7, hers.

She came up to her door and proceeded to search her numerous pouches for her key. She bumped her shuriken pouch, her black marked tiger ANBU mask, and her katana, before locating the keys.

She shoved them in the lock, with a bit of unnecessary force….

She then entered the little flat and dropped her keys on the coffee table in her living room with a drawn-out sigh.

As the bubblegum pink haired kunoichi did this, she thought, 'how the hell did my life get so screwed up?'

* * *

Naruto let out yet another irritated sigh. This time, Jiraiya rolled his eyes at his young friend and said nothing. Knowing whatever he would say wouldn't help anything.

Kakashi had just left the office mournfully trailing behind the rowdy group of Chuunins Naruto had assigned him to….

A soft rap on the door alerted him to his secretary's presence.

"Come in." Naruto called.

Hinata opened the door, while balancing a rather precarious stack of paperwork in one arm as she did. Jiraiya gave her an extremely arched eyebrow.

Naruto frowned as he saw the old pervert eye his girlfriend's backside….he would pound the old fart later…when there were no witnesses….

" Good afternoon, boys." Hinata said sweetly, putting even more paper, on top of the paper on Naruto's stack of paper on his paper covered desk….

Naruto's scowl deepened as he watched this.

"What's the matter you two?" Hinata asked in her usual soft voice. This snapped Naruto out of his scowl and made him look up at his sweet lilac eyed girlfriend.

Giving a lopsided grin Naruto replied, " Typical stuff, Hina-chan."

"Was that Kakashi I just saw leave, Naruto-kun?" she asked, pushing some of the papers away from a spot on the desk and sitting gingerly on it.

Naruto nodded, still looking up at her pretty face. Gently fingering a piece of her long ebony hair he replied. " Yeah, he was reassigned to Konohamaru's team. The only person who volunteered to take his spot in ANBU was Ebisu…. And honestly, I can see why. That group is like me when I was thirteen times ten…."

Hinata's lilac eyes widened in horror at the prospect. " Poor Kakashi-san, why was he taken off of ANBU active duty?" she inquired mildly studying Naruto's face as he played with her hair.

" He trashed his arm on his last mission." Naruto explained, still not taking his eyes off of her. " He messed it up so badly that baa-chan didn't want to do a whole bunch of her healing jutsu on it, or she'd mess up his chakra passageways permanently…. He has to wear a sling and cast for the next six months, and not use his arm at all if he wants it back to its original strength."

Jiraiya looked up from the scroll he had taken off of the bookshelf next to his claimed couch. " How the hell did he manage that, gaki?" he questioned.

Naruto winced at the thought, turning his attention to the pervert, " he used chidori one too many times I suppose…."

It was Jiraiya's turn to wince, the thought of overusing such a powerful lightning jutsu did not appeal to him in the slightest….he nodded and went back to reading however.

"Six months?" Hinata asked shocked, " there isn't anything Tsunade-sama can do for him to speed it up?"

Naruto shrugged, " she said if he had a personal medic-nin to heal it gradually over the course of four months he would be able to use it two months sooner than expected… but I am at a loss of who to ask to do it!" Naruto exclaimed tiredly.

Hinata looked pensive for a long moment and then voiced aloud, " why not get someone familiar to him to do it?"

Naruto looked up at her once more, " like whom?"

" Shizune-san?"

" Its out of the question, she's assigned to an ANBU team right now, as a medic for the next couple of months…." Naruto replied.

Hinata frowned and then perked back up, " why not Sakura-san?"

Naruto was about to say no, and then he stopped himself. Why not Sakura –chan? He wondered. She could use the time with Kakashi to get over her anger with the silver haired ANBU captain.

Naruto knew that she still blamed Kakashi for sasuke's death…or at least as much as she blamed herself. He also knew that she held a grudge against him for not being as social as she would like….

Well, Kakashi did have a tendency to only speak to her when he had no other choice…but, he was afraid of her wrath… who wasn't?

Naruto smirked at his ever sweet girlfriend and nodded, " why not Sakura-chan indeed."

It was decided, Sakura would be stuck with Hatake Kakashi for the next four months if Uzumaki Naruto had his way. And he always did nowadays, after all…

He was the Hokage.


	2. Lucky to survive

Hello! This is scatcat and ninjapenguintime again! We wanted to thank all _122_ of you for reading this story! and the _lovely_ people who reviewed! Now on to the

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_Disclaimer: Sadly, we do not own Naruto...But, if we did... mwahahahahahahahaha_!

**Now, on with the story! **

* * *

_**Chapter 2: Lucky to Survive...**_

Sakura cracked a single emerald eye open in irritation, it _felt_ too early for this sort of thing. The pounding on the door did not cease, if not it had gotten _louder_ in the last several minutes of Sakura's attempts to ignore it.

After a few more seconds of silent contemplation, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and put on her favorite, bunny slippers. This was in addition to her favorite bright orange, oversized t-shirt….of course, she had commandeered it from Naruto when they were Chuunin, and never given it back…. and her brother didn't seem to mind much….

Resignedly, she got up, and off of her twin sized bed with cream colored sheets, and walked down the narrow hallway, past her bathroom, kitchenette and living room, to the door.

She opened it, and was extremely surprised to find a very annoyed looking Shishou.

Tsunade looked at her student, completely unfazed that Sakura would answer the door in only an oversized t-shirt and bunny slippers. Tsunade looked troubled by something,

Sakura noted and voiced her concern immediately, "What's wrong, Shishou?" she inquired, adding under her breath, "other than the fact you're dating Jiraiya."

Tsunade smirked a little at her student's addition to her concerned inquiry.

"Can I come in, Sakura?" she asked mildly, peeking into the apartment, past Sakura's pink head.

Sakura nodded tiredly, and moved aside so that Tsunade could squeeze past. She then closed the door behind herself and Tsunade.

Tsunade sat on her couch, in a very relaxed manner.

Sakura lifted an eyebrow in confusion as to why her ex-Shishou was in her apartment in the first place.

Tsunade saw the thoughtful look on Sakura's face and answered the unasked question. "I'm here because _Hokage_-_sama_ asked me to bring you up to his office."

Sakura's eyes widened slightly when Tsunade called Naruto, _Hokage-sama_. Usually it was just, gaki, or kid, or Naruto.

Sakura found herself nodding again, "Right, I'm going to change. Do I need my ANBU gear or…?"

Tsunade shook her head dismissively, "No, regular Jounin uniform, Sakura."

Sakura looked puzzled, if Naruto had requested her when she had already said that she would come see him in the morning, it had to be something big. Not to mention that he had Tsunade come and deliver the message instead of some random Chuunin like he usually did…. And Tsunade called him Hokage-sama….

'Huh,' inner Sakura mused, 'that's weird.'

Sakura found herself agreeing with…herself, as she went back to her room to quickly don her Jounin uniform, green vest, headband and all.

Tsunade, being as inquisitive as she was, took the liberty of snooping through the girl she considered her daughter's things. She made her way to the small apartment's kitchenette. All this area contained was a small fridge, a sink, a scaled down stove, and a couple of cabinets.

On top of the fridge was something that surprised Tsunade, several empty bottles of sake. Tsunade raised a brow to this; Sakura had never been much of a drinker… what had made that change? Tsunade felt a sudden wave of guilt wash over her, and she turned away from the fridge.

Tsunade shook her head sadly and made her way back to the couch just as Sakura came out of the bedroom dressed in her uniform, finishing tying her hitai-ate to her forehead.

"Ready to go?" Tsunade asked a bit quieter than usual, but not enough for the exhausted Sakura to notice that something was awry….

"Ready," Sakura replied opening the front door.

As Tsunade followed her out, she thought to herself, 'I hope Naruto's right about these two. I hope they really can fix each other…. And not just Kakashi's arm….'

* * *

Sakura and Tsunade made quick time to the red roofed Hokage tower and were soon standing outside Naruto's office door. As they reached it, a very paper-weighed down Hinata emerged.

The Hyuuga's pale lavender eyes widened when she saw Sakura.

"Good morning, Hinata." Sakura said as cordially as she could manage, in the last few years, she and Hinata had found some common ground, Naruto. Hinata loved Naruto as she would love a husband,

Sakura loved Naruto as if he were her slightly younger brother. They would sometimes get lunch together when they were both off duty; Hinata from her secretarial work and fixing things within her clan by helping her sister Hanabi, who she had given the heiress title to.

Sakura, when she was in town, or not hanging around the hospital or ANBU's headquarters.

"H-hello, S-S-Sakura." Hinata said with a somewhat frightened and forced smile toward her friend.

Sakura raised a slender pink eyebrow at her friend's stuttering, and Hinata continued to speak, "u-ummm, I-I have t-to go a-and d-deliver these p-p-papers." She mumbled pushing past Tsunade and Sakura with the precarious stack and leaving Sakura in confusion.

'What did I do?' she asked herself.

'Dunno,' inner Sakura replied sarcastically, 'did you brush your teeth this morning?'

'Very funny.' Sakura grumbled in return, "I thought Hinata had stopped stuttering a couple of _years_ ago, after… well the last battle with Akatsuki?" Sakura asked Tsunade as the older woman peeked into Naruto's office.

She nodded to her former apprentice, " I thought so too, did you do something to make her think you were mad at her?" she asked, closing the office door, the blond was not there, and began to walk farther down the main hallway to one of the other rooms.

Sakura followed Tsunade, deep in thought about many things from three years past and the strange happenings at present.

* * *

Naruto was sitting quietly in an armchair in his private conference room. His orange Hokage coat that was knee length with black flames along the hem, was hanging over the back of said chair.

Wearing his black zip up shirt and comfortable black standard Jounin pants, and his hitai –ate around his neck, he leaned back and put his arms behind his spiky blond head, looking up at the pictures of the past Hokages in front of him.

Shodaime, Nidaime, old man Sarutobi, Otou-san, and Baa-chan. He was just about to close his eyes for a moment to rest them from staring at paperwork for so long, when Tsunade peeked her head into the room.

Naruto looked at her for a second, registering that she must have Sakura with her and sat up a little straighter in the armchair. Facing down an angry Sakura was something you had to do sitting up. The pair entered the room.

"Hey, Sakura-chan." He greeted with a smile. "Thanks for bringing her, baa-chan." He said to Tsunade. Tsunade smiled back at the blond ex-Kyuubi container and removed herself from the room.

Sakura found her brother's smile contagious, and returned it. Naruto looked a little relieved when he saw her smile and stood, he then gave her a tight hug.

"I have a mission for you." He told her as he released her.

Sakura cocked her head to the side in askance, "what kind of mission? Not ANBU surely, if I'm wearing a standard Jounin uniform."

Naruto shook his spiky head and sat back down in his chair, motioning to Sakura to sit in a similar chair to his left. When she was seated Naruto dived into the mission details.

"I have an ANBU captain that has really messed up his arm, and I need you to be around him and the team I have temporarily assigned him to for the next four months. We cannot afford to have him out of commission for the six months that Tsunade estimated originally."

Sakura dipped her head in assent, "so this is a strictly medical mission?" she asked

Naruto shook his head, "You will go with him and his temporary team on missions, because I cannot expect him to be able to keep up without at least a little help from you. If you take the mission, I expect you to help that team, fight with them, and heal the captain. Understood?" he asked.

Sakura looked pensive for a few long moments and then nodded her affirmative. "I accept the mission, I need a break from S-class ANBU missions anyway."

Naruto smiled his signature smile and pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. It was folded neatly and he handed it to her.

"All the details I just told you. You'll meet them at training ground four, today."

"Should I go now?" Sakura asked.

Naruto blinked, "yeah, that would probably be a good idea."

Sakura stood and smiled down at her blond friend. "Alright, hey, Naruto?" she asked.

"Yes Sakura-chan?" he replied.

"What time is it?" she questioned.

Naruto looked down at a watch on his wrist, "it's eleven in the morning, Sakura-chan."He replied.

Sakura looked slightly stunned, she looked across the room to the series of windows, it wasn't early as she had originally thought it to be, and the sky was just cloudy.

"Thanks." Sakura said softly.

"No problem, Sakura."

"Ja ne." Sakura said making a series of hand signs and disappearing in a moment.

"Should I have told her that the captain was Kakashi, dad?" Naruto asked looking at the picture of the Yondaime, who gazed on calmly from the inside of his picture frame.

Naruto sighed and leaned back.

Ten minutes later, he could've sworn that the screech he heard from the other side of the village was Sakura's….and he hoped to Kami that Sakura didn't find out that the idea of this mission had come from Hinata….

* * *

Hatake Kakashi was sitting under a large, shady tree switching between reading his favorite orange book, watching the three chuunins train and thinking about a 'conversation' with a certain spitfire pink kunoichi.

She had seen him walking up the hallway yesterday, and all he had said to her was, '_Yo_.' She had wheeled on him and then proceeded to scream at him about what a jerk he was.

It had surprised Kakashi a little bit, but not a lot, he knew that she was angry at him for ignoring her for the last three years, but in the silver haired ANBU captain's opinion, it was for both of their good.

He would not have to think of how he had failed her, how he had failed Naruto, and most of all, how he had failed Sasuke. If he simply distanced himself from them all. He rarely talked to Naruto or Sakura unless he had no other choice. Naruto seemed to understand at least, he never seemed to push the issue, but Sakura took it personally.

'_Speak of the doom flower_.' Kakashi thought as he looked over the top of his book at a furious bubblegum-pink haired kunoichi stormed up to him.

_**"YOU?"**_ she yelled, '_**Naruto stuck me with HIM?! That stinking blond!! I'll kill 'im!**_'Inner Sakura howled. She came closer to Kakashi, still thoroughly pissed.

_**"Tell me why I should heal your arm, you no good Jerk!"**_ Sakura shouted at him. _**"You probably just did something stupid!"**_ Sakura knew she sounded bitchy when she said it, but at the moment she didn't care, she had never been so angry in her entire life,except that _one other time_, and Kakashi hadn't even said anything yet.

_**In fact** he was **looking** back at his book, his uncovered eye was **not** moving across the page, so he **wasn't** reading, but was he trying to **pretend** she **wasn't** there? **Did** he **think** he could just **ignore** her?_

'**_Oh, hell no!'_** inner Sakura shrieked.

**_"You are a completely insensitive, USELESS PERSON!"_** Sakura yelled finally storming off in the direction she came from.

Kakashi had tried to maintain his calm outward appearance, but internally he sweated,the thought of what Sakura would do if she lost complete control of her ferocious temper was a scary one. He simply didn't have the arm power to deal with a full on assault from her at the moment.

He noticed that halfway through Sakura's tirade that Konohamaru, Udon and Moegi had stopped training and stared openmouthed at Sakura as she yelled at the Copy-nin.

Konohamaru was the first person to speak after Sakura left.

"Wow, Sakura-nee is _scary_."

Kakashi let out a breath he had been holding in unconsciously and inwardly agreed with the Chuunin. He personally felt that he was _lucky to survive_ her fiery wrath.

* * *

Ino had told her to come by the flower shop the day she got back from her mission, because the blonde had wanted to have a 'girl's luncheon.'

Sakura decided that was something she needed at the moment as she walked to the Yamanaka flower shop, still fuming over how Kakashi seemed so nonchalant about everything.

Did he even care if he was still friends with her? Probably not, Sakura decided.

She finally reached the shop and entered it alerting Ino to her presence through the tinkling of the bell on the door.

"Welcome to Yamanaka flower shop-Oh! Sakura! Come here, come here!" Ino said excitedly when she spotted her best friend.

"Hey, Piggy." Sakura said, happy to see Ino.

"You look a little sour forehead." Ino remarked pulling Sakura into a hug.

"I had a rough morning." Sakura replied, frowning.

Ino nodded in understanding, "well, this calls for a lunch on me!" Ino said, "I feel hungry right now anyway."

Sakura smiled appreciatively, "thanks Ino."

"No prob Sakura. Come on then, lunch time!"

With that the long haired blonde with sky blue eyes dragged the bright pink, medium length haired emerald eyed girl out the door; flipping the sign from open to closed. The bell tinkling in their wake.

They went to a small restaurant and were seated outside under and umbrella, though Sakura did not see the point of sitting under an umbrella when it was already cloudy outside.

"It adds to the ambiance of this place, I think." Ino said in reply to Sakura's observation.

Sakura shrugged and picked up a menu, all the things were thankfully, relatively simple to eat, she didn't feel like something complicated at the moment.

Ino followed suit and soon a waitress came and got their orders. Sakura a plate of ginger chicken and rice with a chilled green tea, and Ino the tempura plate with a chilled green tea as well. The waitress left and Ino pounced.

"So, why was your morning rough?"

"I got the most horrible mission of my life, that's what." Sakura replied scowling. She did not want to think about that at the moment.

Ino gave Sakura a strange look, "what is it?" she asked.

"Naruto stuck me with Kakashi for the next four months of my life." Sakura said with a sigh.

The waitress came back with their food and drinks, and set them down in front of the friends. Ino thanked her and turned back to her interrogation.

"Why's that a bad thing?" Ino asked taking a bite of shrimp tempura.

Sakura swallowed a bite of her chicken and put her chop-sticks down.

"Other than the fact he's been ignoring me and Naruto for the last three years straight, nothing. He doesn't care about anything, just as long as he doesn't get too involved he alright with the fact we don't know anything about each other anymore. I'm sure Naruto doesn't even know what's up with Kakashi." Sakura said with irritation creeping into her voice.

Ino's eyebrows rose, "I personally feel kinda bad for the guy, Sakura." She said.

"Why, Ino?" Sakura asked.

"Well, his arm…." Ino said, noticing that Sakura gave her a strange look.

"Don't tell me he didn't tell you how it got like that?" she said, now looking slightly peeved.

Sakura shook her head, " I assumed he had done something stupid."

"It was Chouji, he was on a mission with Kakashi's team, and he was in the way of an enemy Nin, and he couldn't get out of the way quick enough. Kakashi trashed his arm to save Chouji's life." Ino said, almost tearful. She had been dating Chouji since they were seventeen.

Sakura's eyes widened and she felt a sinking sensation in her stomach, guilt. She felt _guilty_ for yelling at Kakashi.

"Oh." Sakura said, "Is Chouji okay?" she asked softly.

Ino nodded, "I know it doesn't completely excuse Kakashi for ignoring you and Naruto, what he did for Chouji, but I think that maybe you should re-evaluate being mean to the poor guy. I mean think about it, he probably feels like he's lost just as much as you have, if not more! He lost his _Genin_ _team_ back in the day and his _sensei_ and he lost _Sasuke_." Ino told her pushing her food around on her plate.

Sakura felt her heart clench when Ino mentioned the Uchiha. She was over him, she had been for a long time now, but she felt _guilty_. She had _killed_ him after looking for him for so long; she would never forget those empty sharingan eyes _staring_ up at her….

"I'll _think_ about being nicer, Ino." Sakura told the blonde, " but I'm _not_ making any promises."

This seemed acceptable to the bubbly blonde, "Alright Sakura, that's all I can ask for."

The pair went back to eating their lunch, under the unnecessary umbrella.

* * *

one last note: Please please please please please, review! We really appreciate it and it feeds our muses, therefore you get chapters faster, because our muses are fed!

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	3. The MOST Ridiculous Person Is

Nnjapenguintime would like to dedicate this chapter to her very best friend scatcat. This is for all the times you have earned the title of most ridiculous child I have ever met. But dont worry, I still love you. And now on to the pretty thankyou list:

revens-revenge,Random Reader Person,Kiri-No-Miko,Rangerette,JiraiyasGirl,anbu10,gamblerrikku,Mateba,Nightside Guardian  
Thank you all sooo very much!! Woot!354 Hits!

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_**Chapter 3: The MOST Ridiculous Person Is…**_

The next day, Kakashi was woken much the same way as Sakura the day before. The Copy-nin sat up and moved his covers off of himself gingerly with his good arm.

The bad one was bound across his chest at night with extra wrappings to ensure it would not be harmed any further; because of these wrappings the copy-nin was wearing only a pair of old sweatpants and then added to this, puppy slippers

. He had received them from Kushina-san and sensei the year before they both died…. They had both laughed and flashed him the smile that Naruto, their son, still held, when they handed them to him….

Kakashi pushed the old memories away wearily and then reached for his dark blue mask.

Kakashi pulled on his mask deftly with his good, right hand, and then shuffled over to the door, which was still being knocked upon. He opened it swiftly, causing the Chuunin outside it, Moegi, to almost fall into her temporary sensei

. She straightened immediately, and was met by kakashi's almost completely bare, muscled chest. Coloring lightly she looked up at the much older man in embarrassment,

"Gomen, Kakashi-sensei, Boss wants you in his office… he said to get there like someone just lit your 'lazy ass on fire'." Moegi said this adding in the 'air quotes.'

Kakashi raised an eyebrow and closed the door on the Chuunin. Moegi was taken aback, and began to walk away; but, then the door opened again and a fully dressed Kakashi emerged and caught up swiftly, falling into step next to the surprised Chuunin.

Brushing it off as nothing, Moegi and Kakashi walked toward the Hokage tower in silence.

Moegi had been somewhat surprised when she had seen Kakashi-sensei's apartment. It was a typical bachelor pad, but it looked nicely kept, and organized. From what she had seen over his shoulder and through the crack of the door, the man always had his things together in his living space, a little dusty, but in order at least.

Another conundrum, Moegi mused, was that Kakashi _had_ moved like his ass had been set on fire, he had, in record time, gotten dressed in something other than sweats and puppy slippers, and he had moved his arm from being bound to his chest to being put into his usual sling.

Moegi was impressed; maybe this sensei wasn't useless like Sakura-nee had said yesterday when she had yelled at him….

Sakura was sitting calmly as she could possibly manage on 'Jiraiya's couch'. She had taken up residency on it roughly ten minutes previous and she had budged an inch since.

Konohamaru and Udon were talking _at_ Naruto with great enthusiasm, and Moegi had gone to fetch Kakashi from his apartment.

Sakura winced at the thought of Kakashi. After thinking over the yelling she had done at him yesterday, she realized that Ino had been right. She conceded to the fact that she had been far too harsh on Kakashi; .now, the problem was, figuring out if she had the guts to tell him she was sorry…

'Yeah, and pigs will fly' inner Sakura said.

Sakura scowled, 'what makes you think I won't apologize to him?'

'Are you kidding me? I'm you and you are me, and I know for a fact that our pride factor is huge! Admitting we're wrong is like…taboo!' inner Sakura explained with a small, harsh laugh.

'I'll prove you wrong!' Sakura replied brusquely closing out her inner, just as Moegi and

Kakashi walked through Naruto's office door without bothering to knock.

Sakura looked up from her spot on Jiraiya's couch as Kakashi moved past her, looking at his arm she winced outwardly. She had called him stupid for getting himself injured…all he had done was save Chouji, could she really be upset with him for that?

No, she decided, she couldn't really….he had followed his nindo; he had helped his team mate in a time of need.

Sakura frowned internally; did his nindo include the friends he left behind, even when he wasn't in battle? Sakura shook her head to clear it, and let out a breath tiredly she then rubbed her temples in an attempt to rid herself of the headache she felt coming on.

Kakashi had seen Sakura's slumped form on the couch the moment he walked into Naruto's office behind Moegi. He felt his chest clench uncomfortably with a now familiar sensation: guilt. Ignoring it, he walked over to Naruto, who was being attacked by Konohamaru and Udon.

Naruto looked relieved to see him and silenced the two chuunins rambling with a look.

"Alright-"Naruto began, only to be cut off by the office door being opened, yet again.

But, this time it was Jiraiya who walked in, looking slightly harried. He made a beeline for Naruto who looked up at his ex- sensei quizzically. Jiraiya deftly pulled a piece of paper out of a pocket and handed it to Naruto.

Naruto opened it and read it, his blue eyes widening. He looked up at Jiraiya who was looking at him expectantly.

"I still have to send a Chuunin team in." Naruto said putting the piece of paper down on his surprisingly un-paper covered desk.

Jiraiya gave him a look that plainly said, 'you have to be kidding me.'

Naruto shook his head tiredly and motioned to the others in the room, namely Sakura, Kakashi and the three Chuunin.

"You're sending _them?"_ Jiraiya asked, looking incredulous.

Naruto made a sour face, "I don't want to send them either, but they specifically asked for a Chuunin team, and _all_ of the other Chuunin teams are busy with something…."

Jiraiya looked somewhat annoyed, "You're gonna send these three gaki's an out of commission ANBU captain and, well…Sakura?"

"Thanks a lot Jiraiya." Sakura muttered, just loud enough for the people in the room to hear her.

"Sorry, but anyway, I _really_ don't like the way my information about _that _country sounds right now, Naruto." Jiraiya protested. "We don't even know what's going on! I mean, can we honestly put Kakashi, Sakura and these three out there not knowing what the hell's up?" he questioned.

Naruto looked down at the piece of paper on his desk once more, "I understand what you're saying Jiraiya, but, we cannot afford to _not_ send them." Naruto replied.

"I sense that I'm out of the loop." Kakashi said in a low tone, "Care to enlighten the ones you're sending out there?" he asked examining his bandaged arm's wrappings for a moment.

Naruto let out a sigh, "I'm sending you on a mission to the Rice country, formerly the Sound country."

Sakura stood at this, "no." she said forcefully.

Naruto raised an eyebrow at this.

"Sakura."

Sakura turned, surprised that Kakashi said anything.

"Naruto is obviously out of options, he said only a moment ago that he wasn't too keen on sending us in the first place, but he's asking us to go. It's obviously important that this mission is carried out. Please try to understand that." Kakashi said quietly to the visibly upset kunoichi so that only she could hear him.

Sakura swallowed and nodded slightly, she knew she shouldn't be so worked up over something as trivial as the country they would be going to….

The three Chuunin, Naruto and Jiraiya were looking at the pair curiously.

"Fine." Sakura said finally, barely audible. "When do we leave?"

"Half an hour." Naruto replied, pulling a mission scroll out of his central desk drawer and tossing it to Kakashi. "Kakashi's in charge, Sakura you're team medic and second in command. The three of you," he directed at Konohamaru, Moegi and Udon, "will listen to the both of them, understood?"

The three chuunins nodded, "understood, Hokage-sama." Moegi replied for the team.

Naruto nodded curtly, "you may all go."

Kakashi turned to his temporary team, "meet me at the village gates in fifteen minutes, I want to check your packs and supplies before we leave."

The three agreed to this and departed the office with an admirable amount of speed. Just as Sakura had reached the door, Kakashi close behind her, Jiraiya spoke, "I want the two of you to be careful."

The pair turned to the older man, "who's out there Jiraiya?" Sakura asked watching the older man closely.

To her surprise, Jiraiya simply shrugged, "no idea, but it's not good. That's what makes me the most uncomfortable about this whole thing… Naruto's right, we have to send you, we can't risk insulting the new Otokage, but by the same token, we can't trust him or his cronies. Be careful."

The pair nodded and left.

Fifteen minutes later, Sakura stood in front of Konoha's main gates, waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.

Five minutes later she saw Konohamaru, Moegi and Udon sprinting toward her.

Sakura rolled her eyes at the sight, it brought back memories of her genin days….she smiled slightly at this and waited patiently for the chuunin to come over. They did and at the same moment, one Hatake Kakashi popped out of nowhere, carrying a bag of equipment.

Sakura raised an eyebrow at this, she had expected him to be at least a few more minutes late….she shrugged it off as unimportant, he must be concerned about the mission, she thought.

Kakashi had gone back to his apartment and immediately begun to get together his standard equipment. It hadn't been used in a good while now, three years to be exact….as he gathered it, his thoughts turned toward a certain pink haired kunoichi, she seemed quite upset over the thought of returning to the Sound, or Rice, whatever the hell they called it now….

He was actually quite concerned over the mental state of his former student. She obviously lumped sound with her memories of the younger Uchiha, and in his experience with Sakura, that could be a possibly dangerous combination.

Kakashi looked down at his watch, it had been twenty minutes since he'd left naruto's office, which meant he was five minutes late… as he grabbed his backpack and went to meet the team, he thought aloud, " hope I don't catch hell from Sakura."

At present, she had not even spoken to him yet… she actually seemed to be avoiding him. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, Kakashi thought as he came over to the younger members of the team.

He took each of the boys bags and went through a checklist in his head while he inspected the contents, Sakura went through moegi's in much the same way, something she must have picked up from him when she had been a genin, Kakashi mused.

Nodding in satisfaction that the boys had packed accordingly for the mission, he looked up at Sakura. She nodded curtly, things were all set with moegi's backpack too.

" alright, since my arm's shot I'll take the rear, Sakura's got the front. Do not act on anything without mine or Sakura's permission, got it?" Kakashi asked the three.

They nodded, " so what is our mission , Kakashi-sensei?" Konohamaru asked enthusiastically, " an s-rank infiltration, or s-rank assassination or-."

"No, Konohamaru, " Kakashi replied, cutting the boy off in mid-sentence, good god was the kid like Naruto when he was younger; luckily the blond had turned out to be much more chilled when he became hokage….

" it is a B-rank protection mission. We go to a small village in the Rice country, and we rid it of a group of bandits, that's it."

" oh, " Konohamaru said, looking slightly dejected, he brightened up again after a moment, " Alright! A B-rank! Yes! Let's go already!" he then charged through the gates.

" Ah! Konohamaru-kun! Wait!!" Moegi yelled as she darted after him. Udon shrugged and followed at the fastest pace he could manage to catch up to his long-time team mates.

Sakura and Kakashi sweat-dropped. This was gonna be a loooong trip. They both thought as they caught up with ease.

Just before nightfall the group stopped amongst the trees. Kakashi was pushed off to the side while Sakura took charge of doling out the camp duties. Konohamaru and Moegi were charged with finding dry firewood to last the night.

Sakura pulled out her sleeping bag, and reluctantly, Kakashi's as well. She then pulled out her cooking materials, just as the three chuunin came back into their little camp.

Sakura pointed to a place opposite of herself and Konohamaru's group stacked all the wood in that small space. Soon Sakura, with no input from Kakashi, started a fire and had some form of food being heated over it. Kakashi had situated himself with his book against a very close by tree trunk.

He had, for the most part, ignored all the activities going on around him, but when he smelled the food, he became very alert. He sniffed the air appreciatively and his lone eye wandered over to the kunoichi who was poised over the pan. She was absorbed in what, apparently, was the activity of not burning the food….

The edibles were soon done and handed out amongst the group of five. Konohamaru fell upon his portion, and rapidly began to inhale it at an inhuman speed. Moegi and udon looked unaffected by konohamaru's strange eating behavior, but Sakura was agape at the similarities between Naruto, when eating ramen, and the teen sitting in front of her.

Kakashi looked up from his food to the chuunin and rolled his visible eye, the similarities were not lost on him.

" Konohamaru, eat slower, you'll puke." Sakura scolded, while she peered at him.

" Iie, Sakura, he's fine. It wont kill him to eat fast." Kakashi said nonchalantly, he had already finished his food, quickly enough for nobody to see his face without his mask….

Sakura turned to him with an annoyed expression on her face, " I personally think he should slow down, theres no need to hurry, and he'll feel ill if he keeps eating at that rate." She replied to him, gritting her teeth in an extreme effort not to go back on her word to Ino.

Kakashi raised a brow at her and mumbled under his breath as she turned away, " ridiculous."

She wheeled on him, eyes blazing with barely- restrained fury. " I'm ridiculous?!" she whispered dangerously. " I'm RIDICULOUS?!" she yelled the last part.

Kakashi's grey eye widened, obviously not expecting for her to have heard that last part…. " well, Sakura… not ridiculous exactly…."

" It's too late for that Hatake!! You are such a jerk! You cant go for five minutes in a conversation without insulting me!" she yelled again.

The chuunin were in awe at the sheer amount of anger erupting like a firey volcano from the kunoichi.

" It wasn't my intention to-" Kakashi was cut off by Sakura, again.

" I don't even want to hear it, Jerkface! You are so insensitive! Just because youre the ridiculous one here, doesn't mean you have to be rude and call me ridiculous too!!"

Where did the days where Sakura was a sweet, absentminded genin go? Kakashi wondered to himself, not out loud thankfully, because if she had heard that, she would surely have killed him and told Naruto it was an accident; even among so many witnesses….

The one-sided argument was cut short by Konohamaru as he finally spoke up.

" I think youre BOTH ridiculous!" he announced with enthusiasm.

The pair of ANBU turned on him and Konohamaru cringed with one glance at Sakura's murderous face.

He gulped. This was gonna be a loooong night.

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PLEASE FEED THE MUSE!!IT'S TUMMY BELL IS RINGING!!


	4. What Could POSSIBLY Go Wrong?

Hello all! This is scatcat and ninjapenguintime... we would like to start this authors note by apologising for the late update... it should have happened several days ago... so, we apologize, please forgive us and continue to read the kaka-saku goodness...

Thank you to all of you who reviewed or put us on any list of any kind, alerts, favs, etc...

Pretty Thankyou List: JiraiyasGirl, Rangerette, and Kiri-no-Miko! thank you all very much for feeding the hungry muse!

Disclaimer: if we owned Naruto, this would happen for real... hee.

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**_Chapter four: What Could POSSIBLY Go Wrong?_**

The ascension of the sun into the morning, summer, sky was full of a myriad of golds, reds purples and yellows. The foliage went from a dark welcoming green to a lighter sage color, just as welcoming, but, perhaps a bit livelier. The birds sang joyfully, their tribute to the glorious morning sun….

All this occurred, oblivious to the catastrophic events that were about to befall the innocent group of leaf ninja.

Amidst the verdant foliage, Sakura sat by the ashes of the fire she had built yesterday, and rooted through her pack. She pulled out a crumpled package of dried stew ingredients, which she reconstituted with water from an extra canteen meant for cooking.

Luckily, she didn't have to build another fire; this stew could be eaten cold with no problems. The small group began to wake and mosey their way over, somewhat bleary eyed and stumbling, to Sakura.

Kakashi moved much more quietly than the rest of the group, and lazily took up his spot under the tree he had claimed the night before. Sakura handed each of the Chuunin a tin bowlful of the reconstituted mess, and one to Kakashi.

Kakashi looked upon the stuff warily with his only visible, grey eye. He sniffed it cautiously, it was the typical 'just add water' food… but one could never be too sure around Sakura.

Kakashi knew for a fact, being around her when she was a Genin and Chuunin that the bubble gum haired young woman could not cook to save her life. He was glad that she had not seen him assess the food last night before quickly scarfing it down…. Kakashi nodded in approval of the stew and stood, then jumped into the tree to eat at a more leisurely pace than the night before.

Konohamaru was not as keen on the food as Kakashi. He peered at the stuff; it looked dubious. He chanced a glance up at Sakura. She was busy eating, and did not notice the chuunin's obvious distaste. Moegi and Udon looked like they either did not mind the watery stew, or they were too tired to care about what it was.

Sakura looked up, noticing the strange look on Konohamaru's face…. "Something wrong, Konohamaru?" she asked, a bit absentmindedly, eating another spoonful of the glop.

"It's yucky," He replied sticking his tongue out at it and holding it out at arms length.

All activity in the small camp came to an abrupt halt. Sakura's eye twitched "Eat it," She said in a deadly calm voice.

"No," Konohamaru replied, not understanding the danger he was currently in. "It's gross. There's a bunch of stuff in here, and I can't even tell what half of it is."

"Eat it, or I will FORCE FEED you," Sakura threatened looming over him, scarily.

"But-," Konohamaru started to say again, only to have Moegi stick a huge glop of the mess in his mouth.

"Shut up, baka! She's gonna kill you!" Moegi whispered fiercely to the oblivious spiky brown haired Chuunin.

Konohamaru looked pouty as he chewed and swallowed, but remained silent.

"See, munchkin, it didn't kill you," Sakura said, returning to her calm state.

"We'll see," Konohamaru replied, as he proceeded to choke down the rest of his breakfast.

When they finished with their 'breakfast' they all promptly packed up their sleeping bags, with the exception of Kakashi. Sakura reluctantly put his away for him. Kakashi moped internally a bit when she did this; he didn't like the feeling of helplessness he received for having his arm out of commission.

After a quick survey of the campsite, determining that no one would know they had been there, they moved out.

* * *

It was noon, and the sun was high in the blazing, blue, summer sky, yet Kakashi felt as if he had a doom-like, sad, grey, raincloud following him around like a lost puppy.

Around half an hour after they had broken camp, Udon had found a target for all of his excited, incessant, unrelenting...questioning. Normally Kakashi would encourage question asking, if it was related to something about ninjas… not about him personally.

Sakura had rolled her eyes at the pair as Udon dropped back to run with Kakashi. She smirked outwardly at the action; she knew for a fact that the silver haired ex-sensei would definitely not give Udon anything concrete to ponder. The injured ANBU captain never elaborated on himself… not even to those who knew him 'well'. Sakura shook her pink head at these thoughts and turned her attention back to travel.

Kakashi was caught off guard by the enthusiasm that Udon held when it came to questions. At first they had seemed innocent… but they had gradually built from kunai throwing techniques to past girlfriends, and eventually, past team mates.

Kakashi did his absolute best to ignore the Chuunin that was currently pestering him to the point of insanity. Udon obviously did not catch on to the fact that his questions about Kakashi's past made his temporary sensei tense up with pain of the memories triggered by the questions.

By the time they stopped for lunch, several hours later, it was a very welcome opportunity to break away from the incorrigible Chuunin. They made their way into a small tea shop in a town they were passing through on their way to the 'Rice' country. They had traveled down the small village's main, dirt, road and the few villagers out in the heat of the day had moved aside to allow the Nin to pass easily; with as little contact as possible.

Sakura supposed that this was because the village was close enough to Sound for those Nin to give them problems from time to time; in small villages like this, incidents involving Nin were not soon forgotten.

The small tea shop was relatively empty when Sakura and Kakashi's team entered it. They found a corner with enough seats and plopped themselves down in them. Kakashi sat as far away as possible from Udon, to avoid another interrogation. A serving girl was shortly standing in front of their table, and took the orders in a very timely manner. After batting her eyelashes at Kakashi she swept away to get their drinks and food.

Sakura narrowed her eyes at the back of the retreating waitress, and this did not go unnoticed by Moegi, who smartly kept her mouth shut; she would question the Sakura about it later… maybe she could capture nee-chan for 'girl time', they could paint nails, and braid hair… and discuss boys: a certain brown haired boy sitting at the table, and a silver haired sensei….

The flirty waitress returned swiftly bearing a tray full of food and drinks. She gave each of the Nin their respective orders and turned to ask Kakashi specifically if there was anything else they needed.

Kakashi shifted somewhat awkwardly in his seat and told her no. She shrugged and finally left the team in peace.

Sakura's death glare did not let up until the server was out of the room. Then, pretending to be uncaring, the kunoichi dug into her mid day meal with a bit of enthusiasm, or at least as much as she could manage under her current circumstances.

Moegi noticed this strange behavior too and carefully took a sip of her green tea, making sure not to burn her tongue.

Konohamaru was talking expressively with his hands and knocked Moegi while she attempted to take said sip.

The tea went flying; spilling down Moegi's front and splashing over her pigtailed brunette hair. Worst of all it scalded. She shrieked from surprise and pain as the near boiling liquid made contact with her skin and favorite shirt.

Konohamaru turned slowly to gaze upon his irate, female, worst – nightmare- like, team mate. He cursed his uncoordinated elbow for hitting her tea in the first place and braced himself for the thrashing Moegi would soon inflict upon him.

Only, it did not come. Instead, Moegi sat very still for a few moments as the rest of the table sat staring at her in shock, and then she burst into tears; rose from her seat and bolted from the building.

Konohamaru looked shell shocked, torn between not getting involved in the messy business that was female teenage hormones, and apologizing later or apologizing immediately, and help her clean herself up.

Sakura sighed heavily, and pushed back her seat, she stood, grabbed Moegi's bag, and made her way out after Moegi; she understood what it was like to be completely humiliated in front of her team mates.

"Sakura-nee?" Konohamaru asked, unsure, and halfway out of his seat.

Sakura shook her head at him, "Wait until I've calmed her down some, then apologize, baka."

Konohamaru nodded and planted himself back in his seat securely. He would let the older girl handle it, and gladly.

* * *

Sakura left the small tea house and sought out the young girl's chakra signature. She soon found it on the outskirts of the village under a solitary tree. She walked casually up to Moegi and placed a small hand on the young girl's shoulder. Moegi looked up with her tear and tea stained face, utterly miserable.

Sakura crouched next to her and handed Moegi her bag. Moegi took it gratefully and said nothing as she rifled through its contents in search of a clean set of clothes.

"Are you alright?" Sakura asked softly, fully aware that the teen could burst out into tears at the drop of a pin.

Moegi nodded slowly and ducked behind the tree to change.

"Why does it bother you so much that you had tea spilled on you?" Sakura asked mildly, "Other than the fact that it looked pretty painful? I mean, haven't you done something embarrassing in front of your team mates before?"

"Sure I have." Moegi replied from behind the tree, "I didn't like Konohamaru back then, though." She explained, emerging with unstained clothing on. She removed her pig- tails and put her fingers through them in an attempt to make her hair look more civilized as Sakura thought.

"If it had been you that the tea had spilled on, wouldn't you have been embarrassed in front of Kakashi-sensei?" Moegi asked pointedly.

Sakura was caught unawares by the seemingly innocent question. "Why would I have?" Sakura asked, gazing curiously at the Chuunin.

"It just seemed to me that you liked Kakashi–sensei, I mean, you did glare at the waitress when she flirted with him…" Moegi pointed out as she pulled her hair into a single messy bun.

Sakura did a double take at this statement, "I did no such thing!" she objected vehemently.

"You sure?" Moegi asked, cocking her head to the side and staring up at Sakura, who had risen out of her crouch to stand.

"Yes I'm sure! He's my ex- sensei, and he hasn't talked to me, hasn't held a proper conversation with me in three years!" Sakura growled in annoyance. "There is a snowball's chance in hell that I would ever feel anything for that self-absorbed twit of a man!"

Moegi looked, wide eyed at Sakura as she stood and shouldered her bag.

"Okay Sakura-nee, I didn't mean anything by it! Honest, I was just curious!"

"It's fine. I don't mind, you just caught me off guard a little, Moegi." Sakura told the younger girl gently, pushing a lock of her bright pink hair behind her ear.

"Oh, okay…." Moegi said, looking not completely convinced as Sakura shifted somewhat uncomfortably.

"Let's go back to the tea house, alright?" Sakura said, brushing off her awkwardness as best she could, looking back in the direction she had originally come from.

"Okay." Moegi agreed eager to drop the subject. It had obviously made Sakura-nee very uncomfortable….

The return trip to the tea house was silent, but Moegi and Sakura were greeted by the males of the group with great enthusiasm. Kakashi was excluded from this group however, as he sat at the table reading a certain orange covered book…. Sakura scowled and rolled her eyes at the familiar sight.

She eased herself back into her seat, and picked up her chopsticks to eat her order from earlier; the food had cooled somewhat, but it was still warm, and it was way better than any of the food she had whipped up on the road… or any other time for that matter….

Sakura rolled her eyes again; she would be the first to admit she couldn't cook to save her life… just not out loud….

Kakashi pretended to read his book, and chanced a glance over the top of it. He observed the chuunins for a moment, the boys, especially Konohamaru, were asking Moegi for forgiveness….

Kakashi then turned his attention to Sakura, who pulled up a seat while rolling her eyes twice and began to eat. Kakashi stifled a chuckle as she happily dug into her somewhat warm food, he knew she would be too stubborn to admit that it was better than her cooking was, but she would never admit it….

Soon the Chuunin came over to join the pair of Jounin at the table, and began to eat their food without complaint… remembering Sakura's food as they did.

Sakura finished off her food in silence, listening casually to the conversation between the Chuunin, and glancing over at Kakashi every so often. Kakashi appeared to be reading his disgusting book… but one could never be too sure of these things…

She thought back to the conversation between herself and Moegi, not half an hour ago, and mused on it.

_Why __**had**__ it bothered her that the waitress flirted with Kakashi? Surely she didn't __**feel**__ anything for the copy-nin, her ex-sensei, the man who had ignored her for three years straight? It simply wasn't possible. Not feasible in the least. The man made an effort to discourage any sort of long term relationships, friendships or otherwise… so __**why**__ would it bother her? Was it because he had spared more words to the waitress in __**five seconds,**__ than he had to her in the last __**three years**__? Yes, that was probably it…._

Sakura sipped her tea noisily, causing the other occupants of the table to look at her. She set her cup down lightly on the wood of the table.

"It's time to go, if you're all done." She said mildly, smiling at them gently.

Sakura smirked inwardly.

That got 'em scared.

With that, the entire table was ready to leave within five minutes.

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Pretty please feed the hungry Muse? It likes it's food to be put into the pretty box at the bottom left hand corner of this page!... hint hint, nudge nudge, wink wink, cough cough... -authors smiling sheepishly-


	5. Kickin' and Screamin'

Hello! This is scatcat and ninjapenguintime! We first of all want to apologize for the ridiculously late update... we are very sorry. scatcat's computer died on her while typing this chapter and we had to wait a whole week for it to be fixed!

thank you very much for all of you reading this fic and reviewing it! thank you to all of you who put us on your alert list!

Quick note: we really, really love feedback of any sort, please tell us what you think of the fic, so that we may become better writers, and in turn produce better chapters for your enjoyment!

and now, without further ado, the newest chapter of Clash.

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_****_Chapter Five: Kickin' and Screamin'_**

Minoru, the leader of the small village of Nari sat gingerly on a roughly hewn stone bench in front of his modest wooden house. He looked about his small village for a moment with a bittersweet smile pulling on the corners of his lips.

He looked down at his sandal clad feet and let out a sigh. There was a commotion at the front of the village… that would be the Leaf shinobi he hired arriving….

He looked up at the newcomer heading toward him, given directions from the other occupants of his village. A flash of mental anguish shot across Minoru's mind as he gazed upon the silver-haired man steadily picking his way through all the muddy little puddles in the road to come and see Minoru.

The memory of a conversation that happened two days previous came to mind in a brief instant:

"_It comes to my attention that you have hired some Leaf-nin, Minoru-san." The dark, shadowy figure intoned maliciously. _

"_H-hai, I have…." Minoru replied, stuttering terribly as his eyes flickered back and forth between the speaker and the ruffians the invader had brought with him. _

_The lot had burst into his humble home with not so much as a murmur and scared his wife and young son into the kitchen. Now, they held Minoru captive in his own living room._

"_You like your village, don't you, Minoru-san?" the dark figure asked, somewhat sibilantly._

"_H-hai?" Minoru agreed, unsure of where this conversation was headed._

"_Then when the Konoha shinobi arrive, you WILL contact me." The figure hissed coming closer to Minoru. _

_Minoru's mouth went dry from fear as he backed away, "B-but, they were going to r-rid us of our bandit p-p-prob-" _

_He was cut off, "that is no longer necessary, I am the one responsible for raiding your puny village, now, you WILL hand over the Leaf-nin or your village will pay the consequences." With that the looming figure and his armed guards left in a puff of smoke, it almost seemed as if they had never been there…. _

Minoru shook his head to clear it of the thought; they _had_ been there. Now, it was up to him to let the frightening man who had cornered him, have full access to the Leaf ninjas he had hired; or everyone in his village was as good as dead.

* * *

Sakura and the chuunins had gone straight to the village inn. Kakashi had opted to go and speak to the village leader as soon as they had stepped foot inside the boundaries of Nari.

The Chuunin were less than eager to be alone with Sakura, who was running very thin in the patience department…. Konohamaru had even made the mistake earlier of asking her if it was " that time of month?" the reply he had received from Sakura was a swift kick in the ass, chakra enhanced of course…

He had ended up with a horrendously bruised tailbone….

When the brown haired male whined to his female counterpart, Moegi had replied with an "I told ya you shouldn'tve messed with her!" that was plenty to shut the boy up. Scowling, the obnoxious boy made the rest of the trip in relative silence… which was quite a feat.

They came to a stop at the front of a small inn, grey in color, and the roof a dulling red.

The peeling inn sign in the single window to the left of the door read 'Atsuake'; warm and bright…. Sakura rolled her eyes at the dreary exterior… 'So much for the 'warm' part' Inner Sakura scowled.

Sakura ignored the jibe and pushed the worn door open, causing a small bell on the handle to tinkle dully.

Sakura found that there was a small reception area to the right against the wall… which no one was currently manning…. There was a bell on the counter, however… obviously to summon the help of the person who gave out rooms.

Sakura dinged the bell twice… and it had about as much enthusiasm as the one on the door… but soon enough a small, slight, woman with small eyes, mousy brown hair, and attire came out of a hallway to the adjacent left of the desk.

"We need rooms for five people." Sakura stated bluntly.

"There are only two rooms available, miss." The woman replied rubbing the back of her head.

Sakura sighed, that wasn't really enough to be completely comfortable… she had actually been counting on the fact that perhaps there would be three rooms available… one for herself, and the other two for the others to divide….

"That's fine, we'll take them." Sakura replied to the woman finally, sounding resigned.

The mousy woman went behind the desk and handed out two sets of keys to Sakura, as soon as she did so however, the chuunins pounced. They grabbed a single key and sprinted down the hallway the receptionist woman had come out of at full tilt. Sakura's eyes widened at their intent, and ran down the hall after them. Too late, she reached the door of the room they had taken shelter in….

"This is so not funny you three. Now come out here, now." Sakura said, sounding quite menacing.

The three Chuunin refused to budge an inch however, as they stayed firmly locked in their room.

"No way, Sakura-san." Konohamaru's voice called back, "We three have decided it's better for our personal health for you to stay in the other room! Kakashi-sensei is better equipped than us to handle the odd attack from you!"

"Nani?!" Sakura whisper-yelled, as to not attract more attention from the other people staying in the inn and the receptionist who was peeping down the hallway at them warily… perhaps wondering if Sakura would break down the door to the room the three renegades were camped in.

"There is NO WAY I'm spending however long we're gonna be in this village, in the same room, as Hatake Kakashi!"

* * *

He had talked for a while with the leader of Nari, and then he had made his way, albeit slowly, to the small inn that the rest of his team had gone to.

Then a woman with small, squinty brown eyes had pointed him in the direction of a hallway, and told him that his room was the one on the right, six doors down. She had handed him a key, and watched him shuffle away… He was pretty sure he had seen her smirk at him too….

He shook his gravity defying silver head at the thought and made his way to his room. The first thing he would do was take off his sandals and take a nice long nap before dinner….

When he used the key to unlock the door to his room… he realized that it might not happen.

Sakura was lying on the left side of the bed, staring up at the ceiling, an exceptionally annoyed look creasing her features. Her emerald eyes snapped to him as he walked in and hovered near the doorway.

The copy-nin looked somewhat surprised that she was in the room.

"The brats took the other room." She offered to him before he could ask why she was here….

Kakashi nodded and shrugged, then sat down on the right side of the queen sized bed, covered in fading cream colored sheets. He bent over, and with his good arm, pulled off his blue sandals. He put them to the side, swung his long legs onto the bed, laid back and put his good arm behind his silver head.

He then took the time to look over, and notice that Sakura was staring at him incredulously… and somewhat threateningly….

"What?" he asked lazily.

"Why are you on the bed?" Sakura hissed, shifting even further to the left and away from him, as far as the queen sized mattress would allow her at least.

"Because I'm taking a nap." Kakashi stated watching her curiously as she moved away from him more. She had obviously had the same thoughts, or else she would not be on the bed with him at all.

"On the bed?" Sakura asked, disbelievingly.

"Aa, that's where people tend to sleep, yes." Kakashi replied pointing out the obvious, and somewhat, he noted, enjoying the redness that crept into her cheeks as she shifted uncomfortably.

"You could sleep on the floor." Sakura muttered under her breath as she crossed her arms over her chest and turned her gaze back to the ceiling, glaring at it as though it were the source of all her issues.

Kakashi turned over on his side as much as his bad left arm would allow him to, and gazed at her levelly. She was avoiding his gaze to the best of her ability at the moment, though she was turning redder by the second.

'Stubborn as ever.' Kakashi mused inwardly, "Why would I sleep on the floor, Sakura, when I can have a side of the bed?" it was not so much a question, more a statement.

"Because it's improper." Sakura replied swiftly.

"Since when do you recall me being proper, Sakura?" Kakashi asked her, smirking under his mask slightly, it was highly amusing how one small woman could turn so many shades of red.

Sakura turned her face to him, her cheeks still red. She did not say anything; she simply glared at him…

Kakashi was certain that if her eyeballs had been kunai, he would have many holes drilled through his head by this point. Deciding to push his luck a little further he added to his earlier comment, "Of course, you are most welcome to sleep on the floor, if you wish."

With that, he turned himself onto his back fully and repositioned the arm behind his head.

He shut his eyes in preparation for his nap. He listened to the sounds in the room.

Sakura's breathing was a little off… faster than usual, whether it was the close proximity or the fact she was angry with him, Kakashi could not tell.

He mentally shrugged it off and shut out the noise, allowing himself to fall asleep. The last thought to cross his conscious mind was, '_Sakura looks cute when she's angry.'_

* * *

Kakashi felt warm, or at least the front half of him did anyway.It was only a few hours after he had fallen asleep, or at least that was what his internal clock told him. He opened his single grey eye blearily and lay still for a few moments, contemplating what on earth the curtain of pink across his eyes could be…. It clicked after a moment of sleepy contemplation.

Sakura.

He then noticed the weight of a leg thrown across his own, and the fact that his were tangled in hers. His good arm was sufficiently pinned beneath the slumbering kunoichi who was currently sprawled across him and using his chest as a pillow.

He looked down at her face, her eyes were open. She did not seem to realize that he was awake, so he took the time to study her expression. Her green eyes were clouded with some emotion he could not name…. She looked up at his face, and was greeted by his grey eye.

She started a bit, only to elbow him in the stomach by accident and jostle his bad arm.

Kakashi yelped, reminding her of a kicked puppy.

She ceased her movements, after finding she was tangled quite efficiently in the mass of limbs and bedcovers, blushing profusely as she did so.

"Let me up." She told him, whispering fiercely.

"I'd like to be able to, but you've incapacitated me. My legs and arm are pinned, plus all of your weight is on my torso." He replied in his comatose state, colored with pain radiating from the smacked arm.

Sakura took a quick inventory of her limbs and carefully extracted each one from the death grip they had imposed upon the incapacitated man; then she rolled back over onto her side of the bed, narrowly missing his bad arm….

Kakashi sat up when she did this and pulled away the bandaging that was holding it tightly to his chest, having ridiculous amounts of trouble with a knot he could barely reach, let alone undo with one hand.

Sakura noted his difficulty and slapped his good hand away, sitting up. She proceeded to go into medic mode and swiftly untied the bandaging, and then she probed with her chakra into the bound arm.

The cells were spazzing because of the nasty jostle she had given them a few minutes ago, and numerous high-chakra induced fractures were pinching nerves as the arm swelled; this would mean that Kakashi was in a lot of pain at the moment.

She calmed the cells and for the first time since she received the assignment, surveyed the damage to his arm. It was bad, really bad. He had almost completely fried it, and any amount of chakra over a d-rank jutsu, would surely cause the arm to be irreparable.

She winced outwardly at the revelation, something Kakashi did not miss as he observed her probe with green glowing hands.

"This is really bad." Sakura said quietly.

"Iie, it's not that bad." Kakashi murmured softly, attempting to pull the arm away from her.

"At least let me put it in a better sling." Sakura said hopping off the bed and grabbing the medic bag she always carried with her from the floor. She plopped herself back down and opened it, looking intent as she searched through it, finally finding a navy blue sling, with metal adjusters.

She noted that he was still wearing his Jounin vest, and made a move to remove it, in order to put the sling on him properly. Kakashi stopped her and pulled it off himself, setting it aside.

She slipped the sling over his silver head and pulled his arm into it. She made the appropriate adjustments for his height and moved away from him, as though remembering to be embarrassed for the predicament they had been in only minutes before.

Kakashi sighed almost imperceptibly; this was going to be a long mission if things like this kept happening….

* * *

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	6. Tempura

_**Chapter six: Tempura…**_

As Sakura walked briskly down the inn's hallway toward the main door, she felt her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She had, not even five minutes ago, woken up in her ex-sensei's arms.

She had cracked her eyes open sleepily and, squinting, looked up at what she thought was a large… warm…pillow…. Wrong.

Kakashi was already awake, and blearily staring at a lock of her bubblegum hair. As though he was trying to make out what it was….

His visible eye widened in realization, and he shifted a bit; this made things awkward as they both realized simultaneously that they were completely wrapped in each others respective limbs.

The situation was made ten times worse when she elbowed him and manhandled his trashed arm. He had made the most helpless, sad, and pained noise she had ever heard coming from a grown man.

That made her feel guilty, and she hated feeling guilt toward him. If anyone should be feeling guilty, it should be him; Sakura reasoned with herself.

He's the one that left, he's the one that separated himself from his team mates when we needed him, he's the one that should feel badly; not the other way around.

'_Sounds like this is about more than just jostling him a bit this morning,'_Inner Sakura replied snarkily.

Sakura shook off the errant thoughts and then noticed she had been stopped in the middle of the hallway for a few moments as she had pondered. She felt Kakashi poke her in the shoulder, "you okay?" he inquired.

Sakura did not turn around, knowing that he would be giving her the 'raised eyebrow' look.

"Fine, just fine." She replied, more snappily than she had intended for it to sound.

Kakashi said nothing else to the medic-nin as she continued on the brief journey to the entrance.

A whole twenty steps later, without any further random stopping, they found the three Chuunin waiting for them by the window of the tiny lobby.

Konohamaru bounded up eagerly, "dinner?" he inquired, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Sakura looked to Kakashi who nodded resignedly. "Let's go." He told the small group.

"Yes!" Konohamaru charged full speed out the door, and into the street, followed by Moegi; "Wait Konohamaru! You don't even know where we're eating yet, Baka!"

Sakura rolled her eyes, as Udon went out the door after his friends, shooting off questions right and left about nothing remotely interesting.

Kakashi sighed quietly and gave a small, lopsided smile when he noted the look on Sakura's face.

It was one he had seen quite often throughout the years, the look of exasperation and slight annoyance, but also a kind of affection for the strange children.

She was irritated by them, yes, but she also felt compelled to be kind to them; and Sakura had the patience of a saint… sometimes. Being team mates with Naruto and himself in the 'old days' had conditioned her to be like that, he supposed.

Tsunade was crazy too… Sakura loved her like another mother, but she had probably developed her patience along with her infamous temper under the sannin's tutelage too….

The thought struck a chord with Kakashi; he had missed that look quite a lot over the past few years. It was his own fault though, really, he was the one that had been avoiding her and Naruto too for that matter.

Though, Naruto was much more difficult to get away from seeing as he was now the Hokage….

Kakashi knew he had been the one to cut off all ties with his former team mates after Sasuke's death.

Kakashi also knew that he had done this for certain reasons too, not necessarily good reasons, but he did have his reasons for doing so, none the less.

He knew he felt personally responsible for Sasuke's death; he knew he had not been the one to actually kill the boy, but he might as well have. He felt that he could have done better to begin with.

That perhaps if he had paid more attention to certain happenings, the untimely death of Uchiha Sasuke could have been avoided; and more than that, the terrible loss of the young Uchiha would not have been felt by Sakura or Naruto, or even himself.

Even more, Sakura would not have had to make the decision in those split seconds to defend herself, the unconscious Naruto and himself from Sasuke; she would not be angst-ing over the blood she had spilt, even though it had been entirely necessary at the time.

Kakashi watched as she moved through the door and begin to walk down the street, toward the closest eatery. He followed after a few more seconds of contemplating his guilty conscience.

Sakura entered the small restaurant, followed by the three ridiculous 'children' and Kakashi, who seemed to be focusing on something that was not present at the moment.

They were ushered into a small booth, with a tacky plastic tablecloth, and torn seat coverings, and what Sakura was positive was gum stuck to the underside of the old wood.

The napkins were paper, and the cups were glass, old, and seemed to retain the look of being washed one too many times.

Also, the entire establishment had the scent of fried foods encompassing it.

A teenaged boy wearing typical civilian garb, and carrying a notepad came up to them a few seconds later and handed them wrinkly paper menus that had been doodled on; saying he would be back in a few minutes to receive their orders.

Kakashi looked down at the dog eared menu and scanned it for a brief moment, deciding that he would just order some tempura to go; that way he could eat in the privacy of the hotel room, without rushing taking off his mask and slipping it back on in a hurry.

The waiter was in no great rush, and proceeded to take his time in getting drinks, refilling drinks, taking food orders and bringing them to the table; all the while the chuunins were chatting away eagerly with each other, and firing a few questions toward the two older shinobi every once in a while; and those usually went unanswered.

Sakura looked across the table at Kakashi, who looked like he was still somewhere else. She let out a silent breath she had been holding in, from debating whether or not to strike up a conversation with him.

Sakura had come to the conclusion that she should probably take Ino's advice and attempt to be nice to Kakashi; after all, he wasn't _that_ bad, not nearly as bad as she made him out to be.

Sure, he had done some serious ignoring, but he had proven that he was still Kakashi and that he still cared, right?

Right. Sort of…. So she would _try_ to make an effort… try, being the operative word.

With this conclusion, she decided that she _would _take a look at his arm tonight, and begin to work on it… seeing as she still felt the tiniest bit guilty for hurting him earlier.

Eventually, the waiter came around again; Kakashi snapped out of his reverie, took the box of takeout he had ordered and paid the boy out of the mission money Tsunade had given them.

The group exited the building and trooped back up the slightly muddy street to the inn.

The Chuunin bid goodnight to the two adults and snickered quietly about the accommodations…. Until Sakura gave them a scary face… then they shut the door to their room in a hurry.

Kakashi went into the room he shared with Sakura and sat down on the edge of the bed, setting down his dinner on the rickety nightstand next to him, and removing his shoes, vest, and forehead protector.

He put the shoes to the side of he stand, and his other articles of clothing in a neat pile to the side of those on the floor, and out of the way so neither he or Sakura would trip over them in the middle of the night on a trip to the bathroom….

Thinking of the facilities, Sakura rooted through her backpack for a few seconds before extracting her bag of toiletries, and then made a beeline for the bathroom; shutting the door with a decisive 'click'.

Kakashi shrugged mentally, at her lack of conversation; passing it off as her just being annoyed with him for earlier.

He reached for his tempura in the medium sized aluminum carry-out container and opened it; placing the lid on the nightstand again. He set it in his lap and pulled down his mask so he could consume his food.

He lifted a piece of the battered-fried shrimp to his mouth and began to eat.

Pretty good, he had to admit, the cook had his compliments, and luckily his food was still warm. Sometimes by the time he would get home, it would be cold, and he'd have to warm it up somehow, or just eat it cold.

Sakura rooted through her toiletry bag in the bathroom, looking for her toothbrush.

So far she had come across her deodorant, her toothpaste, her hairbrush, and her soap, but the toothbrush, she decided had to be in her backpack; she distinctly remembered packing it _somewhere_ in the backpack before she left, she would just go and find it in her pack.

She opened the bathroom door and stepped out into the room, where Kakashi was still sitting on the bed, eating tempura.

_Wait…. Eating?_

Kakashi looked up, the delicious piece of shrimp in midair, halfway to his mouth; Sakura was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, looking shell-shocked.

One foot was halfway up, like she was about to take a step, her eyes were wide.

He raised an eyebrow, wondering what could cause such a reaction… oh, right, no mask.

He was about to ask her if she was alright, when she completed the step she had held in midair for a good couple… ten seconds, maybe more….

"U-m-m-m…." Sakura said, not the most intelligent thing she had ever uttered, but in the current situation, she could not really think of anything else to say.

Sirens were blaring in her brain, 'mask off, mask off, mask off!'

"I…u-m-m-m… I –I forgot my, my toothbrush…." She mumbled tearing her eyes away from his face and in a lightning fast record, grabbing her entire backpack and rushing back into the bathroom, slamming the door.

She leaned against the door she had just closed with unnecessary amounts of force, and dropped her backpack on the old, tiled floor.

"Damn." She muttered, when she could think straight again.

'_Damn's right!' inner Sakura replied, smirking happily. 'We speculated that he would be good looking, but holy hell… the man is f-i-n-e! What with the perfect, young, strong, but lean and smooth face…perfect nose…. And his eyes, I mean sure he had the sharingan one closed, but whew!' _

Sakura tuned out her inner's obsessive ramblings after a minute, "and I thought he might have fish lips, or buck teeth." She whispered amazed at her findings; and also slightly annoyed that after all these years of knowing him, and trying to be sneaky about finding out what was under his mask;

All she had to do to find out, was be stupid enough to walk in on him eating dinner.

Sakura smacked herself in the forehead in exasperation.

After a few minutes, she remembered to grab her toothbrush out of her pack, and she went about her business of cleaning up for the night, albeit, a little more focused on her fellow shinobi in the adjoining room.

Kakashi stared at the door his room mate had just slammed, with both his eyebrows raised in surprise. He certainly had not expected _that_ reaction.

He mentally shrugged and continued his food's path to his mouth, finishing the piece of tempura he had neglected for a few moments. Thinking for a minute or so about what he would do about wearing his mask around Sakura now

… _supposedly_ she wouldn't mind him keeping it off in private… and as long as she didn't go screaming what he looked like underneath it, he didn't think it would be a problem.

That decided, Kakashi finished off the last piece of shrimp from the flimsy metal container, and got up. Grabbing all the components of the take out box, he walked to the trashcan that was in a corner, and threw them away.

He heard the bathroom door click again, and open, slowly. Almost cautiously, and he turned around to see Sakura peeking out into the room. When she saw him _still_ without the mask she gasped and slammed the door again.

Kakashi rolled his open eye, and sauntered over to the closed door of the bathroom. He leaned against the doorframe, next to the doorknob so he wouldn't be hit in the face if she decided to open it again….

"Are you going to be doing that _all _night, Sakura?" he asked slowly.

"Probably." Sakura retorted, her sound muffled through the wood of the door.

"Why?" Kakashi wondered, there was no point to her staying in there.

"Because it's blasphemous." Sakura replied.

"_It's what?"_ Kakashi's face was awash with a look of incomprehension.

"It goes against all laws of, well, _everything, _for anyone, including me to see your _face!_" she explained in a half shout.

Oh, so _that_ was what she was talking about; and that didn't make any sense, whatsoever.

"Um… Sakura, that doesn't make _any_sense. You've already seen my face, now; there is no point, at all, for you to stay in that bathroom all night. I'm not putting my mask back on. " Kakashi sighed after stating the obvious; 'there's_ no point, now that you've seen my face.' He thought tiredly. _

He heard shuffling in the bathroom, and the click, of the doorknob.

Then, slowly but surely Sakura became visible as she opened the door, and looked up at him.

The look _screamed_ confusion.

"But… why?" she trailed off.

"Why what?" Kakashi questioned, moving from his perch on the door frame to the bed once more, where he took off his pack, held up by his pants, and the one attached to his leg, and set them aside, next to his other articles of clothing in neat piles.

"Why do you wear a mask in the first place?" Sakura blurted out, turning an interesting shade of red.

'_Kami I feel like an idiot….'_ She thought as she gazed at him.

He turned around to face her again, noting the deep, crimson coloring that was extending all the way to her neck….

_Kami, he didn't want to continue this conversation… too many memories were being dragged to surface._

Time to advert the topic.

"Because I can." He told her pulling down the covers that had been made back up in their absence at dinner by some room keeper; then standing and grabbing his knapsack from the floor.

Sakura's face did not stop being red, as she rolled her eyes at the lack of response from the copy-nin

"If you're done with the bathroom, I'm going to clean up for bed." He told her.

Noting the kunoichi's silence, he took that as she was finished with the bathroom, and walked the small space to the door and closed it softly behind him.

.

"Whatever you say, Kakashi." She muttered under her breath moving around to the other side of the queen-sized bed.

She sat on the edge of her side lightly, and began removing her zori, kunai and shuriken holsters and her vest, putting them in piles similar to Kakashi's next to the headboard of the bed.

On top of this, she put her headband. Kakashi would probably be at least a few minutes in the bathroom, so she decided to change into her pajamas.

Quickly she changed from her navy Jounin uniform, into her favorite orange, oversized tee-shirt, and a very old pair of dark grey, drawstring, jersey-material shorts, they had also been Naruto's….

Sakura couldn't help but laugh at herself; she really needed to stop commandeering the poor blonds' clothes… not that Naruto had ever cared that she took his old clothes….

And it wasn't like they fit him anymore anyway, the clothes she had on now were from when he was sixteen… and he had gotten a lot taller since then, these would probably not fit him anymore, and if they did, he would look ridiculous….

Sakura, smiling wryly, sat down on the bed again.

Kakashi emerged from the bathroom a couple of minutes later, clad in a loose pair of black drawstring sweatpants and a long-sleeved, loose fitting black shirt.

He looked over at Sakura whose hair pink hair clashed horribly with the bright orange of Naruto's old shirt, and smiled a bit.

"Ah, Sakura…." He began; she faced him, noting that he was holding the sling she had given him with his good arm, and cradling his bad one against his chest.

"I don't want you to wear that when you're sleeping, actually." Sakura said motioning to the sling, as she watched him move closer to her, and sit down on his turned down sheets.

"I'd like to have a closer look at your arm if that's alright. The more I know, the sooner I'll be able to heal it."

Kakashi put his long legs up on the bed, and propped himself up on the headboard, proffering the damaged arm to Sakura. She leaned over him, and very gingerly pushed up his shirt- sleeve.

She made a few hand signs and went to work.

Kakashi became drowsy after what seemed like hours… in reality it had only been a single hour. Out of the single window in the room, he could glimpse out of the corner of his squinty eye that it was dark outside.

His open eye became tired, so he closed it; thinking he would just rest it for a bit.

It had been a long day….

Not even a minute later, Sakura noted that his breathing became slow and even; Kakashi had fallen asleep. She looked up at him, breaking her concentration from his arm, she smiled.

He looked very peaceful, and young. Even if he was in his mid-thirties, he looked not a day past his late twenties.

She studied him for a while longer, and saw that he had dark markings under his eyes; Kakashi was a victim of insomnia.

She couldn't blame him, she had been awake many a night thinking of things past, worrying about things present, and trying not to contemplate things in the future.

She shook herself out of her reverie, and stopped the chakra flow to his arm. She had done all she could for it tonight without overtaxing his already frazzled cells.

She leaned over the copy-nin carefully, so she didn't wake him, and turned off the lamp on the bedside table.

She moved carefully back over to her side and pulled down the faded cream blankets; moving underneath them, lying down.

Then she noted that Kakashi was still asleep, on top of his side's blankets….

She sat up, reached over, and carefully slid them out from under him, and covered him up to his chest.

She lay back down and pulled her covers up, facing him. He had given her a lot to think about today… and that in itself was unusual.

She was too sleepy to contemplate it all now, the mask, his trust in her, to fall asleep and completely be relaxed in her presence, even if it was unconscious was a huge thing….

The last thing that crossed Sakura's mind as she drifted off was _'Kakashi looks much less tense when he sleeps….'_

* * *

Minoru sat in his kitchen, alone. He had sent his wife and son to the main bedroom so that they would not be harassed by the shadow figure.

letting out a deeply saddened sigh,Minoru thought back to the afternoon, when he had met the captain of the leaf- Nin team, Hatake Kakashi, had come earlier, and met with him for a few minutes.

The man had seemed earnest, and hardworking; and that made it all the more difficult for Minoru to turn the leaf-nin over to the shadows.

As he finished his thought, Minoru felt a hand on his upper back. It startled him badly, and he jumped.

"Tch, Minoru-san, be easy. I wont hurt you… unless you give mea reason to." The figure hissed. "I received your note via one of my men earlier this afternoon…." He continued.

Minoru swallowed, a lump forming in his throat. "The-the leaf shinobi…" Minoru began, and trailed off, his voice growing weaker.

The figure seemed to tense, and its hand on Minoru's back became heavier.

"Where?" the figure demanded, "where are they now?" it sounded, eager.

"At the Atsuake inn." Minoru said hoarsely, fear evident in his voice; and damning himself internally for not being a stronger person.

"You met with them earlier." Not a question, a statement, from the shadow figure.

The insistent weight on Minoru's back seemed to become even heavier.

"Hai." Minoru affirmed very quietly.

"Who was it?" the figure probed, its voice becoming harsh. "What did they look like?"

"He was in his mid-thirties, with one eye, and silver hair; four others came with him." Minoru explained in a quiet, desperate sort of haste.

"What was his name?" the figure inquired, deadly in its calm tone.

"Captain Hatake Kakashi."

The figure seemed angry, as it gripped Minoru's back painfully.

"Are you going to kill me?" Minoru asked, still sounding desperate, but making an attempt to seem calm.

"I killed you seven and a half minutes ago." The shadow replied apathetically, as it released him.

That was all the shadows needed. More quickly than anything Minoru had ever known, the menacing presences were gone from the room.

Minoru still felt a resounding sense of dread.

Minoru rose from his seat, and stretched slightly, feeling a slight twinge in his back.

reaching his arm over his shoulder, and felt something slender and pointy protruding.

His eyes widened exponentially, as he pulled it out and brought it to his line of sight.

A senbon, dripping with his own blood and a ghastly green substance.

Three and a half minutes later, his body fell to the floor without any sort of warning, stone dead.

* * *

In the middle of the night, Sakura and Kakashi simultaneously jerked out of their respective slumbering to an ear-piercing scream of terror.

Sakura was out of bed and at the window in a flash, and Kakashi was staring at her blearily.

Questions ran through both of their minds, who, what, when, where, why, how?

The only question, semi-answered was 'where?'

Judging from the distance the sound must have come from, it came from the direction of the village leader, Minoru's house; and the scream had been female.

The really big question now, was, 'why?'

Sakura looked over at Kakashi, who was giving her an equal look. In that second, Sakura knew he was thinking the same thing.

They needed to find out the 'why'.

* * *

We apologise greatly for this ridiculously late chapter... we have had outrageously busy lives over the past several months... we've both had graduation projects to do, and studying and traveling and we just finished taking exams a couple days ago.... So again, we apologise and we are going to try even harder to get the next chapter up in a more timely fashion ( It's about halfway finished right now.) Thank you all for your amazing patience!

--- Scatcat517 and Aidan Notfilc (formerly ninjapenguintime)


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